Applicants' above-referenced U.S. patent application Ser. No. 134,703 discloses a case loading apparatus wherein a plurality of articles are inserted transversely through an open end of a case which is thereafter sealed for shipment purposes. This type of apparatus requires precise alignment of the opened case with the articles to be inserted therein, including the requirement that the flattened case be precisely fed onto a conveyor and opened prior to its conveyance through the filling, folding, and sealing stations of the apparatus.
The precise depositing of the cases onto a conveyor, from a magazine, raises a number of problems when the cases are composed of heavy-duty paperboard, such as corrugated paperboard. The combined problems of individually feeding the flattened blank from a magazine, positioning the blank on a conveyor, and thereafter opening the blank into tubular form, have sometimes made it necessary to resort to manual operations for effecting the same. Automated apparatus for performing these operations are often complex and do not always meet the speed requirements for a particular packaging machine.